Ten things we want to know about the 2017 F1 season · F1 Fanatic

Ten things we want to know about the 2017 F1 season | 2017 F1 season How quick will the 2017 F1 cars be? Are we in for a year of processional racing? And what do Liberty have planned? The ten big questions for 2017.
from F1 Center Ten things we want to know about the 2017 F1 season | 2017 F1 season How quick will the 2017 F1 cars be? Are we in for a year of processional racing? And what do Liberty have planned? The ten big questions for 2017. http://ift.tt/2kZv5Tu

Ferrari's Raikkonen believes speculating on F1 2017 is 'pointless'

Ferrari's Raikkonen believes speculating on F1 2017 is 'pointless' Kimi Raikkonen believes speculating about the likely 2017 Formula 1 pecking order amid changes to the technical regulations is "pointless"
from F1 Center Ferrari's Raikkonen believes speculating on F1 2017 is 'pointless' Kimi Raikkonen believes speculating about the likely 2017 Formula 1 pecking order amid changes to the technical regulations is "pointless" http://ift.tt/2k2MP2B

The urbanisation of F1

The urbanisation of F1 Liberty Media seems to me to have adopted a thoroughly sensible approach to F1 thus far. The old rock hard approach to rights fees did not help the sport, even if it poured more money into the pockets of the greedy folk at CVC Capital Partners. They did not think to invest to grow the business, they simply took and took and took. Bernie suited their requirements. He did deals for the fun of it, squeezing more money from everyone, as a means of showing who was in charge. That was his thing, and he did it well, but it was an unsustainable long term strategy. Liberty will be tough, of that I am sure, but I think also they will treat the sport with more respect. They want people to like them and be happy to part with cash voluntarily, rather than feeling that it was screwed out of them. They believe there is much to still develop. I agree and have been banging on about it for some years now… It is never easy to please everyone, but I am also sure they are right about their plan to take racing to the people, rather than trying to get people to the racing. I think a big part of successful promotion is, as the saying goes, location, location, location. How anyone thought people would go to a marsh in a remote corner of Korea now seems a very strange decision. OK, if one has no worries about a government paying for a race, you can hold them in the forests of Siberia, or in the moving sands of Timbuktu, but what’s the point? The current trend, which I see developing further, is to take races into or close to big cities, destination cities, where the racing can form part of a much bigger festival. A big party. The best models for this are (in order of age) Monaco, Montreal, Melbourne, Mexico and Singapore. These cities hum with atmosphere when F1 comes to town. The key to success is finding the right location. Monaco is a tradition and the race is part of the city’s heritage. In Montreal the race is on an island, but it’s close to town by subway. Melbourne is in a public park and you get there on the tram. Mexico is a similar story. Singapore is not quite as good as the track closes city streets and is disruptive, but access is brilliant and it has worked wonders for the city. Shanghai has great access but the city is so big that the race doesn’t seem to make much of an impact. Others, like Interlagos, Austin, Barcelona, Monza and Hungary are a little more complicated, but still within easy reach of a big population centre, while the older traditional tracks at Spa, Suzuka, Austria, Silverstone and the Nürburgring are more challenging – wonderful though they are. It is perhaps worth looking at the trends in racing, in relation to changes in society, to understand this strange mix. At the very beginning of the history of motorsport, the races started and finished in city centres. It made sense. That was where the people were. Then, for obvious reasons, the races moved out of town, to areas of lower population or to purpose-built speedways. The fans travelled by train to attend. And then, as car ownership increased, new circuits sprang up in more remote places, old airfields, or in regions keen to promote their charms. The spread of cities, in the meantime, caused largely by cars, meant that the early speedways were swallowed up. Few survived. Most were buried beneath new housing. Times have moved on and with television fewer people bothered to struggle out to the legendary tracks, with their muddy fields, meagre infrastructure and high ticket costs. There were other leisure activities emerging and attendances fell. The development of CGI and the drive towards better safety in racing meant that the wow factor of motor racing wowed fewer people. With one or two exceptions, the races which flourished were close to cities – with easy access and public transport. Who wanted long drives and parking hassles? Building new speedways became harder because of the costs involved, and the rules and regulations that had to be followed. The environmentalists were also difficult. But then along came silent racing and Formula E was able to go back to places which could never have held Grands Prix. The trouble with Formula E is that it is neither fast nor viscerally exciting. The ground does not shake when a field of Formula E cars take off. If parkland tracks are the way to go, and F1 can help to make places nicer, or use wasted facilities, as happened in Albert Park and Sochi, for example, where disruption can be limited and to which people can easily travel, there must be opportunities out there. Let’s see F1 going after Long Beach again, let’s see what can be revived in New Jersey, or Floyd Bennett Field. And let’s take a look at places like Amelia Earhart Park in Miami. Please think about donating to the Jill Saward Fund, which aims to continue the work of my sister Jill Saward (1965-2017), who campaigned to help rape victims and to reduce the number of rapes in the world.
from F1 Center The urbanisation of F1 Liberty Media seems to me to have adopted a thoroughly sensible approach to F1 thus far. The old rock hard approach to rights fees did not help the sport, even if it poured more money into the pockets of the greedy folk at CVC Capital Partners. They did not think to invest to grow the business, they simply took and took and took. Bernie suited their requirements. He did deals for the fun of it, squeezing more money from everyone, as a means of showing who was in charge. That was his thing, and he did it well, but it was an unsustainable long term strategy. Liberty will be tough, of that I am sure, but I think also they will treat the sport with more respect. They want people to like them and be happy to part with cash voluntarily, rather than feeling that it was screwed out of them. They believe there is much to still develop. I agree and have been banging on about it for some years now… It is never easy to please everyone, but I am also sure they are right about their plan to take racing to the people, rather than trying to get people to the racing. I think a big part of successful promotion is, as the saying goes, location, location, location. How anyone thought people would go to a marsh in a remote corner of Korea now seems a very strange decision. OK, if one has no worries about a government paying for a race, you can hold them in the forests of Siberia, or in the moving sands of Timbuktu, but what’s the point? The current trend, which I see developing further, is to take races into or close to big cities, destination cities, where the racing can form part of a much bigger festival. A big party. The best models for this are (in order of age) Monaco, Montreal, Melbourne, Mexico and Singapore. These cities hum with atmosphere when F1 comes to town. The key to success is finding the right location. Monaco is a tradition and the race is part of the city’s heritage. In Montreal the race is on an island, but it’s close to town by subway. Melbourne is in a public park and you get there on the tram. Mexico is a similar story. Singapore is not quite as good as the track closes city streets and is disruptive, but access is brilliant and it has worked wonders for the city. Shanghai has great access but the city is so big that the race doesn’t seem to make much of an impact. Others, like Interlagos, Austin, Barcelona, Monza and Hungary are a little more complicated, but still within easy reach of a big population centre, while the older traditional tracks at Spa, Suzuka, Austria, Silverstone and the Nürburgring are more challenging – wonderful though they are. It is perhaps worth looking at the trends in racing, in relation to changes in society, to understand this strange mix. At the very beginning of the history of motorsport, the races started and finished in city centres. It made sense. That was where the people were. Then, for obvious reasons, the races moved out of town, to areas of lower population or to purpose-built speedways. The fans travelled by train to attend. And then, as car ownership increased, new circuits sprang up in more remote places, old airfields, or in regions keen to promote their charms. The spread of cities, in the meantime, caused largely by cars, meant that the early speedways were swallowed up. Few survived. Most were buried beneath new housing. Times have moved on and with television fewer people bothered to struggle out to the legendary tracks, with their muddy fields, meagre infrastructure and high ticket costs. There were other leisure activities emerging and attendances fell. The development of CGI and the drive towards better safety in racing meant that the wow factor of motor racing wowed fewer people. With one or two exceptions, the races which flourished were close to cities – with easy access and public transport. Who wanted long drives and parking hassles? Building new speedways became harder because of the costs involved, and the rules and regulations that had to be followed. The environmentalists were also difficult. But then along came silent racing and Formula E was able to go back to places which could never have held Grands Prix. The trouble with Formula E is that it is neither fast nor viscerally exciting. The ground does not shake when a field of Formula E cars take off. If parkland tracks are the way to go, and F1 can help to make places nicer, or use wasted facilities, as happened in Albert Park and Sochi, for example, where disruption can be limited and to which people can easily travel, there must be opportunities out there. Let’s see F1 going after Long Beach again, let’s see what can be revived in New Jersey, or Floyd Bennett Field. And let’s take a look at places like Amelia Earhart Park in Miami. Please think about donating to the Jill Saward Fund, which aims to continue the work of my sister Jill Saward (1965-2017), who campaigned to help rape victims and to reduce the number of rapes in the world. http://ift.tt/2jGpDDR

'Wrong' for McLaren F1 rookie Vandoorne to only focus on Alonso

'Wrong' for McLaren F1 rookie Vandoorne to only focus on Alonso McLaren Formula 1 rookie Stoffel Vandoorne believes it would be a mistake if he focused only on trying to beat team-mate Fernando Alonso this season
from F1 Center 'Wrong' for McLaren F1 rookie Vandoorne to only focus on Alonso McLaren Formula 1 rookie Stoffel Vandoorne believes it would be a mistake if he focused only on trying to beat team-mate Fernando Alonso this season http://ift.tt/2kW8dVw

Fascinating F1 Fact:57

Fascinating F1 Fact:57 In the 17th arrondissement in Paris there is a garage called Le Fair-Play. We’ll gloss over the fact it sells Volkswagens and concentrate for now on the concept. It is not a very French expression and, remarkably, was imported from English – because the French did have a word for sportsmanship. Back in the 1960s there was an amusing musical comedy duo called Flanders and Swann. They sang clever songs including one called “The Song of Patriotic Prejudice”, which was amusingly rude about the other nations of the world and chorused with “The English, the English, the English are best. I wouldn’t give tuppence for all of the rest”. It made people laugh, not because they took it seriously – but because they understood it was a satirical look at nationalism. One of the verses was about sports. “And all the world over each nation’s the same,” it went. “They’ve simply no notion of ‘Playing the game’. They argue with umpires, they cheer when they’ve won, and they practice beforehand – which ruins the fun.” The point – now long forgotten – was that, for the English, sport was not about winning, but rather about the pleasure of competition, and if your opponent played well and won, one was generous and applauded the achievement. It was born from the respect between competitors. There have been two outstanding examples of sportsmanship in the history of F1, although these were long before the sport was played to Schumacher Rules, where shoving a rival off the road is deemed to be the norm. The first was at Monza in 1956, in the final race of the season. Argentina’s Juan Manuel Fangio (45) was the favourite to win his fourth world title. His challenger was his Ferrari team-mate 25-year-old Englishman Peter Collins, who was in a position to become his country’s first Formula 1 World Champion. Fangio had an eight point advantage which meant that Collins had to win the race and set the fastest lap – without Fangio scoring. So it was really down to reliability. As luck would have it, Fangio retired with steering problems. In those days, teams were still allowed to switch their drivers between cars and so Ferrari asked its third driver Luigi Musso to hand his car over to Fangio. He refused to do so, on the grounds that he didn’t wish to disappoint his home crowd. This meant that Colllins was on track for the title as he closed in on race leader Stirling Moss. But then, with 15 laps to go, Collins slowed and drive into the pits. He handed the car over to Fangio, thus giving up any chance he had of winning the world title. Fangio rejoined but could not catch Moss. Collins said that Fangio was too great a driver to be let down by machinery, and added that he was still young and would win a title soon enough. Alas, that did not happen. Two years later Peter Collins died in an accident at the Nürburgring. Three weeks after Collins’s death, the Formula 1 teams gathered again for the Portuguese GP on the streets of Porto. The battle for the World Championship that year was between Moss in a Vanwall and Mike Hawthorn in a Ferrari. It was wet on the day of the race and Moss and Hawthorn fought for the lead, until Hawthorn spun and ended up on a pavement, off the race track. The car stalled. When Moss came around on his next lap, he shouted to Hawthorn to try to bump-start the car, by letting it roll down the hill behind where the Ferrari had stopped. This worked, Hawthorn rejoined and finished second to Moss. After the race, the stewards decided to exclude Hawthorn because he had driven the wrong way on the race track. Moss heard the news, went to see the stewards, argued that Hawthorn had not been on the track and should not be disqualified. They reversed the decision and Hawthorn was given back his second place. Two races later Hawthorn won the title from Moss by just one point… thanks to Stirling’s sense of fair play. Please think about donating to the Jill Saward Fund, which aims to continue the work of my sister Jill Saward (1965-2017), who campaigned to help rape victims and to reduce the number of rapes in the world.
from F1 Center Fascinating F1 Fact:57 In the 17th arrondissement in Paris there is a garage called Le Fair-Play. We’ll gloss over the fact it sells Volkswagens and concentrate for now on the concept. It is not a very French expression and, remarkably, was imported from English – because the French did have a word for sportsmanship. Back in the 1960s there was an amusing musical comedy duo called Flanders and Swann. They sang clever songs including one called “The Song of Patriotic Prejudice”, which was amusingly rude about the other nations of the world and chorused with “The English, the English, the English are best. I wouldn’t give tuppence for all of the rest”. It made people laugh, not because they took it seriously – but because they understood it was a satirical look at nationalism. One of the verses was about sports. “And all the world over each nation’s the same,” it went. “They’ve simply no notion of ‘Playing the game’. They argue with umpires, they cheer when they’ve won, and they practice beforehand – which ruins the fun.” The point – now long forgotten – was that, for the English, sport was not about winning, but rather about the pleasure of competition, and if your opponent played well and won, one was generous and applauded the achievement. It was born from the respect between competitors. There have been two outstanding examples of sportsmanship in the history of F1, although these were long before the sport was played to Schumacher Rules, where shoving a rival off the road is deemed to be the norm. The first was at Monza in 1956, in the final race of the season. Argentina’s Juan Manuel Fangio (45) was the favourite to win his fourth world title. His challenger was his Ferrari team-mate 25-year-old Englishman Peter Collins, who was in a position to become his country’s first Formula 1 World Champion. Fangio had an eight point advantage which meant that Collins had to win the race and set the fastest lap – without Fangio scoring. So it was really down to reliability. As luck would have it, Fangio retired with steering problems. In those days, teams were still allowed to switch their drivers between cars and so Ferrari asked its third driver Luigi Musso to hand his car over to Fangio. He refused to do so, on the grounds that he didn’t wish to disappoint his home crowd. This meant that Colllins was on track for the title as he closed in on race leader Stirling Moss. But then, with 15 laps to go, Collins slowed and drive into the pits. He handed the car over to Fangio, thus giving up any chance he had of winning the world title. Fangio rejoined but could not catch Moss. Collins said that Fangio was too great a driver to be let down by machinery, and added that he was still young and would win a title soon enough. Alas, that did not happen. Two years later Peter Collins died in an accident at the Nürburgring. Three weeks after Collins’s death, the Formula 1 teams gathered again for the Portuguese GP on the streets of Porto. The battle for the World Championship that year was between Moss in a Vanwall and Mike Hawthorn in a Ferrari. It was wet on the day of the race and Moss and Hawthorn fought for the lead, until Hawthorn spun and ended up on a pavement, off the race track. The car stalled. When Moss came around on his next lap, he shouted to Hawthorn to try to bump-start the car, by letting it roll down the hill behind where the Ferrari had stopped. This worked, Hawthorn rejoined and finished second to Moss. After the race, the stewards decided to exclude Hawthorn because he had driven the wrong way on the race track. Moss heard the news, went to see the stewards, argued that Hawthorn had not been on the track and should not be disqualified. They reversed the decision and Hawthorn was given back his second place. Two races later Hawthorn won the title from Moss by just one point… thanks to Stirling’s sense of fair play. Please think about donating to the Jill Saward Fund, which aims to continue the work of my sister Jill Saward (1965-2017), who campaigned to help rape victims and to reduce the number of rapes in the world. http://ift.tt/2k0p0s9

F1 Fanatic round-up: Driver vote puts Halo introduction in doubt

Driver vote casts doubt on Halo | F1 Fanatic Round-up In the round-up: Driver vote casts doubt on Halo • F1 doesn't need major change - Todt • F1 too expensive for Ford
from F1 Center Driver vote casts doubt on Halo | F1 Fanatic Round-up In the round-up: Driver vote casts doubt on Halo • F1 doesn't need major change - Todt • F1 too expensive for Ford http://ift.tt/2ktGYnu

Engineering moves

Engineering moves Right now, the focus in F1 is on the production teams. They are busy making parts, building up cars and making sure that everything is properly crash-tested befor the pre-season testing gets underway. The launches will start in around three weeks from now, and the testing will begin in Barcelona on February 27. The second and last test will kick off on March 7. The design teams are currently in a fairly slow period and some of the designers and technical directors will be off relaxing, perhaps skiing, before the work begins again. The aerodynamic crews are still going, but they will run for as long as the rules allow them run. Making sure that staff are properly rested in quite an important element in F1 these days, although technical directors and chief designers do not all go to all the races. The brunt of the travel is taken by the race teams, the track engineers, the support teams and the drivers. Thus, what teams really want is to have designers who are rested and ready to go so that work can begin in a month or two on the 2018 cars. The designers will want to have a good look at the 2017 machinery, of course, to see what everyone else has been doing, but it will not be long before the first fingers start tapping on the first mice, creating CAD files for the 2018 cars. The chassis themselves generally stay fairly similar from one year to the next and it is the aerodynamics and the vehicle dynamics (and thus suspension design) that move with the times. But everyone is pushing all the time and one needs to keep up with all the latest ideas. A lot of effort at the moment is going into hydraulic systems which improve chassis stability. Teams will tell you that the aerodynamics are the most important thing, but driver confidence is right up there too. Give a driver what he wants and you can make a leap forward that would cost tens of millions in the grinding development process. The men who decide which departments get what resources are the key players in the modern age. The more money you have, in theory, the better the car you produce, because everyone gets the budget they need. The brilliance in F1 design today is not necessarily achieved with a drawing board, although it is hard to fault Adrian Newey, but it is the technical management that is key. Small teams know that if they put limited resources in the right places, then success will follow. At the moment F1 is still an engine formula (which it should be) but clever aerodynamics and clever vehicle dynamics (and also clever understanding of the tyres) are also important, as the different engines edge closer to one another in terms of performance. Luca Montezemolo said this week that Mercedes started work on its 2014 engines in 2007, but I think he might have been taking a little too much Kool-Aid, given that the rules were not formulated for a very long time after that. I guess the former Ferrari chairman needs to try to explain why Ferrari screwed up as badly as they did… While all this is going on, Paddy Lowe will be returning to Williams, where his career started, at the start of March. This means that Mercedes signed off on his gardening leave because it needed Valtteri Bottas and because it already has James Allison signed up. He left Ferrari in July last year and normally nowadays one needs 12 months of paid gardening leave to stop an engineer going elsewhere. Given that Mercedes F1 is about 30 miles from his home, this is not a big deal. The interesting point is whether or not Williams will give Lowe a share of the team. The has price has rising for a while, which suggests someone is buying, and I would suggest that it is probably the family, in order to give Lowe shares without diluting their control. That would be logical. I fully expect Lowe to join the Williams board of directors, but his title will be really interesting… It may not help much in 2017, but Lowe’s arrival and the use of Mercedes engines ought to lift Williams in the years ahead… Please think about donating to the Jill Saward Fund, which aims to continue the work of my sister Jill Saward (1965-2017), who campaigned to help rape victims and to reduce the number of rapes in the world.
from F1 Center Engineering moves Right now, the focus in F1 is on the production teams. They are busy making parts, building up cars and making sure that everything is properly crash-tested befor the pre-season testing gets underway. The launches will start in around three weeks from now, and the testing will begin in Barcelona on February 27. The second and last test will kick off on March 7. The design teams are currently in a fairly slow period and some of the designers and technical directors will be off relaxing, perhaps skiing, before the work begins again. The aerodynamic crews are still going, but they will run for as long as the rules allow them run. Making sure that staff are properly rested in quite an important element in F1 these days, although technical directors and chief designers do not all go to all the races. The brunt of the travel is taken by the race teams, the track engineers, the support teams and the drivers. Thus, what teams really want is to have designers who are rested and ready to go so that work can begin in a month or two on the 2018 cars. The designers will want to have a good look at the 2017 machinery, of course, to see what everyone else has been doing, but it will not be long before the first fingers start tapping on the first mice, creating CAD files for the 2018 cars. The chassis themselves generally stay fairly similar from one year to the next and it is the aerodynamics and the vehicle dynamics (and thus suspension design) that move with the times. But everyone is pushing all the time and one needs to keep up with all the latest ideas. A lot of effort at the moment is going into hydraulic systems which improve chassis stability. Teams will tell you that the aerodynamics are the most important thing, but driver confidence is right up there too. Give a driver what he wants and you can make a leap forward that would cost tens of millions in the grinding development process. The men who decide which departments get what resources are the key players in the modern age. The more money you have, in theory, the better the car you produce, because everyone gets the budget they need. The brilliance in F1 design today is not necessarily achieved with a drawing board, although it is hard to fault Adrian Newey, but it is the technical management that is key. Small teams know that if they put limited resources in the right places, then success will follow. At the moment F1 is still an engine formula (which it should be) but clever aerodynamics and clever vehicle dynamics (and also clever understanding of the tyres) are also important, as the different engines edge closer to one another in terms of performance. Luca Montezemolo said this week that Mercedes started work on its 2014 engines in 2007, but I think he might have been taking a little too much Kool-Aid, given that the rules were not formulated for a very long time after that. I guess the former Ferrari chairman needs to try to explain why Ferrari screwed up as badly as they did… While all this is going on, Paddy Lowe will be returning to Williams, where his career started, at the start of March. This means that Mercedes signed off on his gardening leave because it needed Valtteri Bottas and because it already has James Allison signed up. He left Ferrari in July last year and normally nowadays one needs 12 months of paid gardening leave to stop an engineer going elsewhere. Given that Mercedes F1 is about 30 miles from his home, this is not a big deal. The interesting point is whether or not Williams will give Lowe a share of the team. The has price has rising for a while, which suggests someone is buying, and I would suggest that it is probably the family, in order to give Lowe shares without diluting their control. That would be logical. I fully expect Lowe to join the Williams board of directors, but his title will be really interesting… It may not help much in 2017, but Lowe’s arrival and the use of Mercedes engines ought to lift Williams in the years ahead… Please think about donating to the Jill Saward Fund, which aims to continue the work of my sister Jill Saward (1965-2017), who campaigned to help rape victims and to reduce the number of rapes in the world. http://ift.tt/2krgfsg